Rand Paul forces suffer setback vs. GOP establishment

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — In the GOP’s ongoing establishment vs. grassroots saga, chalk one up for the establishment.

Since Mitt Romney’s loss, the Rand Paul wing of the party has been on the ascendency. But libertarians hit a roadblock Friday as the Republican National Committee opted at its spring meeting to keep in place a host of rules rammed through by the Romney campaign at last year’s national convention.

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The move represents at least a small setback to Rand Paul’s 2016 hopes, potentially making it more difficult for him or another candidate with strong grassroots support to pick up delegates. Had the rules been in effect last year — they were adopted after Mitt Romney secured the nomination — the former Massachusetts governor would likely have wrapped up the nomination much earlier and avoided the drawn-out warfare that weakened him heading into the general election against Barack Obama.

One plank that was maintained, for example, allows more states to award delegates on a winner-take-all basis, instead of proportionally. An attempt to overturn another rule that bounds a state delegation to support whoever won a statewide vote received only 49 votes; 107 committee members voted to keep it in place.

The vote followed a heated debate. Paul backers argued that the Romney rules favor big-money candidates at the expense of contenders with devoted followings among activists.

“This damages grassroots candidates in general, whether that be Rand or anyone else,” said Paul backer Jeff Larson, who carpooled from Texas with friends to lobby the committee.

Ron Paul’s 2012 deputy campaign manager, Dimitri Kesari, promised that the state chairmen and committee members who voted against rolling back the Romney rules will be forced to explain themselves if they run for reelection.

“This is just a first salvo,” he said.

Tea party groups including FreedomWorks also admonished the committee and promised to keep pushing back against any effort to centralize power.

Establishment figures called it unfair that Rick Santorum won caucuses in states like Iowa and Minnesota but then Paul wound up controlling the delegation because his supporters organized better for the conventions that pick delegates. They complained that it’s wasteful to force campaigns to expend resources winning an election and then winning delegates.

But even as establishment types won the caucus fight, the committee’s four-day meeting here made clear that their biggest prize – a regional primary that would allow a well-funded candidate to clinch the nomination quickly – is well out of reach.

Last month the party’s “autopsy” task force — co-chaired by George W. Bush’s former press secretary, Ari Fleischer, as well as Haley Barbour’s nephew and a Jeb Bush confidante — suggested that primaries are preferable to caucuses. They also called on the party to explore “a regional primary system or some other form of a major reorganization instead of the current system.”

This would give a structural advantage to more moderate candidates who can raise lots of money to afford big TV buys across multiple states holding their primaries on the same day. Candidates seeking to build momentum early in a state that’s cheap to advertise in would be at a disadvantage.